Sister
by Shadow over Egypt
Summary: She wasn't Light, but she wasn't stupid. Her brother might have been a genius while alive, but in the aftermath Sayu can draw conclusions on Kira on her own. #oneshot, post-series#


**Notes: **Set after the series end, so spoilers ahead. Focusing on Sayu, and briefly on the aftermath on the Yagami family.

* * *

**Sister**

She wasn't Light, but she wasn't stupid. Quite the opposite in fact, though quadratic functions had always been her downfall in high school. With a little help from her brother she'd been sorted, and went on comfortably through the rest of her basic education with above-average grades (though it was only _just _above-average with mathematics due to the dreaded algebra) which got her into an above-average university - To-oh, the place Light had studied. The name 'Yagami' was still remembered there, recorded in eternity for pretty caramel-gold eyes and copper-coloured hair that had had people tripping over themselves in worship. Recorded in eternity for the joint perfect score upon entrance, and the perfect score upon leaving, the highest score in the country. For the mental, athletic, and social ability one Yagami Light had possessed. The name 'Yagami' was remembered at To-oh.

Yagami Sayu formally left To-oh University after one condolence too many. She couldn't take it anymore – Light was everywhere and _nowhere, _and her mental health was still impossibly fragile after her own abduction, and the deaths of her father and brother.

Sayu wasn't Light, but she wasn't stupid. She understood that her father had died in pursuit of Kira and she knew that knowledge tore her mother apart, and so she never mentioned it, if she could. Yagami Sachiko was too busy dealing with her own nervous breakdown and didn't need her daughter's added on top of it – and Light, sweet Light, had been there to comfort them both and be the rock of strength and trust. Misa had always been hanging around, pottering about the Yagami kitchen and making bowls of soup – though her cooking was _terrible _Sayu appreciated the gesture; Misa was always willing to listen. Misa understood Sayu's pain – hadn't Misa's own parents been murdered?

Light had died. Like they'd done for his father before him, Aizawa and Ide had stood on the doorstep of his family home, the bringers of bad news, telling Sachiko her son was dead. Dead, dead, _dead, _killed in pursuit of Kira. Sayu, tight-lipped, standing on the bottom step as she watched her mother crumple, saw how both police officers awkwardly shifted their gazes – Aizawa tried to comfort Sachiko, but everything about him was forced. Almost as if –

"How did he die?" Sayu knew her father had been riddled with bullets, a confrontation with the mafia for…for some _notebook _– hadn't she been kidnapped and traded for the cursed thing? What was so important about a _notebook?! _"How did my brother die?" Sayu knew this wasn't the right time to be asking questions, especially as Sachiko was practically hyperventilating in grief on the floor, but Ide and Aizawa were shifty and somewhat scared by the anger she knew was blazing in her eyes – "Tell me how my brother died!" They wouldn't slip away before she knew –

"We already said, Yagami-chan." Aizawa's eyes were pitying – he had daughters of his own, didn't he? Her father had mentioned it once or twice… "He died in pursuit of Kira, and now Kira is gone."

"So he died of a heart attack?"

"Yes." Aizawa had helped Sachiko to a seat in the lounge, but afterwards Sayu had viciously chased him out, calling her aunt to tell the woman the bad news. Her mother's sister had been straight over, comforting and warm; Sayu slipped away from her.

Ide and Aizawa had never mentioned the bullet-holes in her brother's body. Sayu had volunteered to claim her brother's corpse, and had seen the wounds – Light would've been in agony before he died –

It didn't seem like Kira to _shoot _someone, and the news said the mafia had all been dealt with.

The facts didn't quite match up.

Sayu wasn't Light, but she wasn't stupid. She knew her brother. Light had been smart – scarily smart – and when Light had disappeared –

There was that time Soichiro had said he'd disowned Light for being dishonourable and running off with Misa. Light had done it all without even so much as a 'bye' to Sachiko – Light was conscientious. If he was going to run away, he would've at least said _something _to their mother. And then…afterwards, Soichiro and Light had been on good terms again seemingly overnight, as if nothing had happened.

And – watching the news…Sayu couldn't help but see the lists killed by Kira, notice the differences in who Kira did and didn't strike down. Kira spared those who killed in self-defence, those by accident – Kira had _morals. _

Sometimes, quietly to herself in the very darkest of the darkest nights, a small part of Sayu's mind whispered that those morals were eerily similar to some of the ones she knew Light possessed. And how sometimes, when Light grew truly impassioned about justice, he sounded almost exactly like –

Sayu wasn't Light, but she wasn't stupid. She could easily draw inferences and implications from events, and there was a horrible implication lurking in the blatant truth that dangled in front of hers and Sachiko's faces. Her mother couldn't see it, because tears for her lost husband and son blinded her vision, but Sayu could, and Sayu _hated _it.

When Light had died, Aizawa and Ide had been afraid to look at her, as if she'd some truth hiding in their eyes, as if she'd expose their lies if she looked too hard.

When Light had died, members of the police force that had always previously come around to pay their respects stopped coming, as if they _knew _something.

When Light had died, his coronary report said he'd died of a heart attack – but someone had shot him in the hand and shoulder, as if trying to stop him…doing something? Writing something? In what? The notebook…?

When Light had died, Kira stopped killing.

Misa killed herself, and Misa had loved both Light and Kira.

Sayu wasn't Light, but she wasn't stupid. She was a Yagami - bright, insightful and pretty -, and her parents had given her good morals by which to live her life. She could draw conclusions from evidence placed before her – it was something you grew used to with a police chief as a father -, but it didn't mean she had to like what was concluded at the end.

On the grass before her brother's grave, Sayu laid a single white orchid. It was hard to think Light could have been a murderer; the infamous Kira just didn't equate as 'nii-san' in her head. But then, 'nii-san' and 'dead' didn't equate really well either, but here she was, standing before her brother's tombstone. Light had been full of life…

She was full of questions she had no answers for, and knew she never _would _have any answers. She knew that, accepted it, and tried not to think about it too much because it _hurt_. Light had been her brother, her only brother, and she'd loved him. And he'd always been affectionate to her. And she was only just coping with things as it was. Sayu knew she was doomed to have mysteries hanging over her head for the rest of her life.

She wasn't Light, her brother, perhaps-Kira, but she wasn't stupid.


End file.
